HN Explorer

Show HN: I'm tired of sharing code using PasteBin and Slack, so I made this (turbogist.dev)

41 points by moeen-mahmud ↗ HN
Hey developers

I think we're tired of copying and pasting our codes and sharing links using PasteBin, GithubGist, or Slack. What if you could share the codes without copying the link and share them right from your favorite editor? That was the motivation for creating TurboGist.

Right now, it's still in the MVP stage, and I'm trying to gather feedback from developers like you. It's available as a beta in the VS Code Extension store.

Can you guys check this out? It'd help me a lot. You don't need to pay any penny, 100% FREE.

However, I'm working on introducing a self-hosted feature. Besides, a better alternative to PasteBin or GithubGist.

Looking for your input on:

- How this would fit your workflow?

- Must-have features or integrations (e.g., GitHub Gist, PasteBin, etc.)?

- Pain points in your current code-sharing process?

- Do you have features in your mind?

Thanks for reading this.

68 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] thread
akshayKMR
It'd be better to link the vscode extension and a quick demo.

I skimmed through the website, and the only interaction is to join the beta, view a video which is 15mins (too long).

Apreche
Came here to say the same thing. I saw the video was 15 minutes and didn’t even bother. If it takes 15 minutes to demonstrate sharing code, how can it be an improvement over Slack and Pastebin? In the time it takes to watch the video I could have shared so much code on Slack very easily.
Retr0id
vscode itself can run in the browser (https://vscode.dev/), and presumably so could the extension - so a full live-demo ought to be possible.
moeen-mahmud
That's a good idea. I'll try to add something similar as well.
WesleyJohnson
I agree. For something so "simple", with a name like turbo, I expected a 30 to 60 second video that quickly demos the value-add. I quite like the premise, but you're trying to pitch to users who want low-friction solutions, and then hitting them with a 15 minute video to see the sauce.
sliken
Assuming it works from a terminal session, maybe try: https://asciinema.org/

It can be self hosted if you want.

moeen-mahmud
I'll check it out. But I couldn't find a better demo video-capturing tool for vscode. Do you know something like this?
itake
I typically use Gitlens to get the gitlab or sourcegraph links.

Expiring links might be nice... I have a lot of old gists that don't need to exist, but I'm too lazy to manually delete them.

I don't think such a tool, I would pay for...

lambdaba 

  $ gh gist list | fzf --preview "gh gist view {1}" -m | cut -f1 | xargs -n1 gh gist delete
moeen-mahmud
Seeing this command, I think most of us save more "commands" than "code". In my case, most of them are "commands" rather than "code", because I always forget.
diggan
Seems the email isn't actually necessary, the extension is here for people who wanna try it: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=turbo-gi...

Personally, I use pastebin/GitHub Gist because I know it'll be around for a long time compared to all the new ones appearing and I really hate broken links, so my biggest question when coming across this would be "How do they ensure they'll remain online for as long as possible?"

grogenaut
A big CO I work for makes them last only 90 days so you put them somewhere more permanent. There's a gap for the people who can code but don't know how to use the real version control system.
moeen-mahmud
Could you tell me more about the workflow where you worked? Like, how do you guys share code among the team members?
grogenaut
Source control. If it's sharable make it into a real tool and put it in source control. This is what CLIs and libraries are for
moeen-mahmud
Your observation is correct. However, I wanted to have a group of users as beta users to get better engagement. What about you get storage with lifetime access, and the "shared code" will be there as long as you don't delete it?
diggan
> What about you get storage with lifetime access, and the "shared code" will be there as long as you don't delete it?

The "lifetime" access is referring to my life, or the life of the service? ;)

Obviously the latter, which in that case, doesn't mean much, unfortunately. I guess I'm at a point where stability is more important than it used to be.

Unless you can find a way of making sure the URLs will continue to work, it'll be a really hard sell until you got a couple years of running the service under the belt.

Or, let people use Gist/Pastebin as the actual backend :)

moeen-mahmud
> The "lifetime" access is referring to my life, or the life of the service? ;)

Loved that question!

Yeah, I also think it'd be better to let people use Gist/Pastebin as their backend of choice.

unsnap_biceps
I see from your demo that it appears that this is less about just sharing code and more about rapid feedback. Before I watched the video I was wondering how this was different from JetBrains' "Code With Me" or VS Code's "Co-Edit". Might be worth clarifying that it's more than just sharing a snippet in the landing copy.
moeen-mahmud
Absolutely, I should've shown how it differs from the existing solution. I'll focus on these from the next.
deathanatos 

  Application Error

  Yt@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DLPix6K5.js:180:801
  u@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DLPix6K5.js:186:1066
  Eo@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:22:16959
  Ka@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:43694
  Wa@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:39501
  rd@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:39432
  el@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:39289
  Hi@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:35710
  Va@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:24:34666
  E@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:9:1563
  pe@https://turbogist.dev/assets/index-DxO2AQNl.js:9:1930
> I think we're tired of copying and pasting our codes and sharing links using PasteBin, GithubGist, or Slack.

I think I normally just encourage my coworkers to push the branch (to Github, Gitlab, etc.) to share larger snippets. Smaller stuff, `/snippet` works alright.

But I think the bigger issue with any tool is that corporate isn't going to want company IP uploaded or put into a random website. (This is already the case for a "PasteBin", too; the companies I've worked at wouldn't want me using that, either.) That said, I see this rule violated … a lot. More nowadays with the litany of LLM stuff out there. So, that "self hosted" feature would almost certainly be a requirement, but hosting small tools like this is a high barrier to adoption vs. a process like Slack or Github that has some small friction, but otherwise works.

> Pain points in your current code-sharing process?

Honestly I think the biggest pain point I have with sharing in Slack is that other people don't seem to know how to use Slack. You'll get a code snippet not in a `/snippet`, not even in a code block, just variable-width normal paragraph text.

(The other pain point is that Slack corrupts code-block contents in some cases. ("a known bug here […] currently being investigated by our engineering team […] don't have a timeline for a fix just yet" … the bug has been around for years, so yeah…))

moeen-mahmud
Thank you for your detailed comment and for mentioning the Application Error. Did you land on my page, or was the error blocking it? Please tell me so I can fix that.

You address your thoughts. The snippet folder just works fine, but I was thinking something about real-time, like chatting. I was thinking of making it self-host as an alternative to PasteBin and GithubGist, not only for extensions. But your insight is good. The problem with Slack or Microsoft Teams is the same. People don't even bother to format it; maybe they don't have time to do it. That was the actual pain point for me as well.

Could you tell me more about how I can improve it? Most importantly if it can bring up a better solution compared to Slack, PasteBin, and in-repository "/snippet" folder, would you use it?

jonahx
I would suggest trimming the 15m intro video down to 1 minute or less.
moeen-mahmud
You're right. The first video was about 5 mins but then I thought I'd add a long video with a good explanation. But initially, I should've done a short demo video to show only the value-added things.
mrozbarry
I wonder if you could just have some sort of looping animation showing a vs code window, with live typing, and a view beside it of the turbogist ui.
moeen-mahmud
Could you tell me more about this idea? I'm not getting it.
mrozbarry
I came here to say just this. When the word "turbo" and phrase "zero distractions" are present, but the demo is a number of minutes long, it feels like something is wrong.
conductr
Yep. I jumped off the elevator before the pitch began
moeen-mahmud
This is so stupid of me :)
bookworm123
No its not. Its a good video, just bad place for it. I watched it and got to understand your product. You show the important part in the time frame ~6:00-7:00. Make that part faster and as a gif without sound and the main message is conveyed
sureIy
The video is good as a "Learn more" demo
bagels
Please write a script, and put the demo in the first few seconds. I don't know what this tool actually does.
harel
I second that. Emphasis on the "or less". Go straight to the point. No fluff.
herpdyderp
> I think we're tired of copying and pasting our codes and sharing links using PasteBin, GithubGist, or Slack.

Is this a common feeling? These all work fine for me, what's the issue?

moeen-mahmud
That's what I wanted to learn. Maybe I should start with "I" instead of "We"
karol
Doesn't solve a real problem, cool tech.
moeen-mahmud
Do you have any suggestions, on which thing would add value? Or how I should think about solving the problem?
karol
One way is to find at least 5 instances of people complaining about something online using a phrase 'take my money', or 'if only there was a company selling this'.
rafram
The "Inline Completion" animation on the home page seems broken. It loops between typing "function" and "function calculate", and the autocomplete code doesn't look like a valid completion for either of those.

There's also no <title>.

moeen-mahmud
I'll check it out and fix that ASAP. Thanks for pointing out!
yieldcrv
OP, have an AI write a script for a 15 second video demo, instead of your 15 minute one, and then do it

you need to distribute the cognitive load on your launch strategy

people cant be invested enough to even answer your actual questions if they're unfamiliar with how you solve their problem

moeen-mahmud
That's a good idea. It's my first time creating something real, from development to video demos or writing this reply. I'll surely try to do better.
bagels
How is this better than copying the GitHub link with right click menu in vscode?
yunwal
This is cool, but I think my desire to minimize switching focus away from my IDE is outweighed by my need to avoid notifications in my IDE. Ultimately my IDE window is a place for deep focus, and this seems like it detracts from that.

Or maybe this is meant as a replacement for github PRs, meant for async review, in which case I really think PRs work well and don't need to change.

So yeah, I have to agree with others that I'm not really seeing the usecase here

moeen-mahmud
Thank you so much for your detailed feedback. If I cut the vscode extension feature, would you use the other feature which is an alternative to PasteBin or GithubGist?
Aeolun
I share code by pushing it to Github and using the “Copy permalink” functionality from my editor. Then I get a link directly to that commit/line number.
moeen-mahmud
Yeah, this is a good approach. However, I was thinking about real-time.
tonymet
I use gist remotes a lot by creating a gist and adding it as a remote to a local git directory.

If i were using your tool, it would be nice to have a single "turbogist" repo for all of the gists. That way i could send gists into it with git push

you could do something clever like this by having turbogist server manage the prefixes , so a git push from any repo would automatically consolidate all of the various prefixes into the turbogist account

moeen-mahmud
Amazing idea!! It starts making me think differently. Thank you so much for sharing this. Could you tell me more about storing and sharing the "gist/pastes" for later use? For example the link validity, or share only with a certain group of people?
tonymet
gist's "clone with ..." feature is very powerful. It's a unique and (from what I can tell) permanent remote that you can push to. it has some restrictions on naming and file content.

but i would love to see your product run with "clone with..." but make it work for all your experiments

I just wrote up a guide on doing something similar with subtree and a large "experiments" repo .

https://dev.to/tonymet/how-to-put-everything-in-git-2b3d

moeen-mahmud
Just read your post. Honestly, I didn't think that way for sharing code. Thank you so much for this! Bookmarked.
moeen-mahmud
OP here,

I apologize for the longer video, I should've done a short video rather than explaining the whole thing. Didn't realize it'd impact that much. I can understand your frustration. Give me some hours to make a new one.

I'm sorry, it was my first time creating any product and thinking about SaaS, and I'm still learning it. Please correct me, it'll help me improve and do better.

bookworm123
maybe a bit off topic but as a fellow developer who is working on a project, how did you set up that website? I was thinking of something just like that for my project!
moeen-mahmud
Your question is perfectly fine. I used magic UI with shadcn
ipiyer
The video intro is bad. Make a 30-second pitch. Also, please lose the fake accent; it is okay to sound native.
moeen-mahmud
Thank you, I'll try to do it better next time.
itake
When I was at Yelp, we shared log files in gists. the infosec team loved this, b/c they could scan the gists for PII and token leaks easily.
moeen-mahmud
Hey everyone, I've trimmed down the video to 55 seconds. Besides, I'll be working on pivoting the idea if needed based on your feedback. Thank you all for your valuable insights.